I've tried to track down references by Gish, as I think it is possibly
more concrete to critique his actual writings than second hand oral
accounts ofhis talks. This is what I came up with:
"Dinosaurs: those terrible lizards," Master Books, 1977
This is the one that scares me the most. It's a children's book! Why
does it scare me? Because Gish uses the same bullshit tactics to preach
to little kids as he does with adults. Here's what the blurb on the back
of the book says:
"No one living in the world today has ever seen a real live
dinosaur - but did people in earlier times live with dinosaurs?
Were dragons of ancient legends really dinosaurs? Does the
Bible speak about dinosaurs? The answers are in this book!"
Gish first gives a brief overview of very basic facts about dinosaurs &
dinosaur fossils: definition of "dinosaur," global distribution of fossils.
Then he has a section called "Where did dinosaurs come from?" He gives one
paragraph "explaining" evolution. His "definition" of evolution stresses
"in-between forms," and the dates "about 200 million years ago" and "about
70 million years ago." Then he spends four paragraphs on creation: one
paragraph on a definition, and three on biblical grounds for creation.
His next section begins, "Is there scientific evidence that Man and dinosaurs
lived at the same time?" He stresses that if they did we would be very
unlikely to see actual fossils of them together, because of patchy
fossilization. Then comes (you'll never guess) - the Paluxy River footprints.
He ends this section with, "Are there human footprints and dinosaur footprints
together in Paluxy River bottom? . . . We will not be able to say absolutely
sure one way or the other until more work is done." In addition to all of
this, the illustration on this page is of a human walking next to a dinosaur,
both leaving footprints. Scary, huh? (By the way, the latest version of this
was published in '88, and it's still on sale today - you've gotta love guys
who lie to kids)
Next comes the biblical evidence for the coexistence of man with dinosaurs -
description of the "behemoth" (Job 40: 15-24)
Then Gish gives descriptions of various kinds of dinosaurs, interspersing them
with quotes like, "If this strange creature [_Triceratops_] slowly evolved,
as evolutionists believe, then we aught to be able to find transitional forms
. . . but none are found!", and lots of talk about the "purposes" of various
structures (i.e. _Stegosaurus'_ plates). My favorite quote from this section
is, "[again, about _Stegosaurus] Not a single such in-between form can be
found! . . . This is good evidence that these creatures did not evolve but
were created by God." (p. 25) (The old "if evolution isn't true, our version
of creation must be" argument - this time being used against children!)
Eventually Gish gives up all appearances of impartiality in this section,
saying things like "No in-between forms! That's because God created them."
(p. 27)
The next section is called "Ancestors for Birds?" and says such things as
"The bird type hip suddenly appears in certain kinds of dinosaurs, with
no in-between forms showing where the bird-hip came from. That's because
God created them!" (p. 49)
The next section is five pages entitled "Dragons and Bombardier Beetles."
Of course, this section focuses on how the Bombardier beetle ("Mr. B. B.")
couldn't have evolved his defense mechanism: "Could evolution make all
of that happen by a zillion accidents? No way!" (p. 55) Of course, no
reference to the fact that this argument has been shown to be a bunch of
hooey.
The last section is "Whatever Became of the Dinosaurs?" Gish's answer?
Weather changes caused them to go extinct. I think we all know what his
mechanism for the weather changes is (Hint: Starts with an F, ends with a
D, and has LOO (as in toilet) in the middle).
DISCLAIMER: Unlike Derek (who actually did a good job of being unbiased), I
didn't separate my comments from my summary. However, the summary parts
are as unbiased as I could make them. In addition, I'd like to assure
everyone that all the ellipses [. . .] in the above quotations _do not_
remove anything from the meaning of the quotes.

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